Jordanian authorities remove posters for Iraqi polls

The Amman city council has removed campaign posters for Iraqis voting in Jordan during the election this month, saying they should be confined to the vicinity of polling stations and not plastered on walls and lampposts.

Amman Municipality official Izzedine Shammout told it was illegal to glue election posters to the city's buildings and infrastructure. He said his office had removed dozens of posters around the Jordanian capital and ordered that they be hung close to ballot centers.

Jordan's large Iraqi community will be allowed to vote in some 13 polling stations around the kingdom when Iraqis go to the polls to elect a parliament on Dec. 15. Balloting in Jordan and 14 other nations worldwide hosting Iraq's out-of-country vote opens Dec. 13 for three days.

Posters on glossy paper have been plastered on billboards, walls and lampposts across Amman since the campaign began last Thursday.

Jordan's interior ministry says there are some 400,000 Iraqi expatriates living in the kingdom. The exact number of eligible Iraqi voters here was not immediately known. But in the first Iraqi elections held last January, 6 percent of 180,000 eligible Iraqi voters in Jordan then cast their ballot, the AP reports.